Archaeologists & Scholars

Alexander Wetmore
1886 - 1978

wetmore_570. A. Wetmore Collection, Smithsonian
Institution Archives

Alexander Wetmore was born on June 18, 1886, in North Freedom, Wisconsin.
He was interested in birds from a young age, and received a B.S. in
1912 from the University of Kansas. In 1916 he received an M.S. from
George Washington University and a Ph.D. in 1920.

As a young biologist with the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey, Wetmore
conducted extensive fieldwork in Latin America. In 1911 he studied
bird life in Puerto Rico, and later traveled for two years throughout
South America investigating bird migration between the Americas.

Wetmore became assistant secretary of the U.S. National Museum in
1925, where he served for twenty years. Despite the fact that fieldwork
opportunities were limited during the Great Depression and World War
II, Wetmore managed to conduct short trips to Haiti, the Dominican
Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia.

In 1939 Wetmore joined Matthew Stirling at Tres Zapotes, Veracruz,
to study the bird life of that region. Following the 1939 season, other
Smithsonian ornithologists continued the fieldwork that Wetmore had
started: Melbourne Armstrong Carriker in 1940 and Walter Weber in 1943.
As both assistant secretary of the Smithsonian and personal friend,
Wetmore maintained an extensive correspondence with Matthew and Marion
Stirling during their archaeological expeditions to Mexico and elsewhere.

Wetmore served as the Smithsonian's sixth secretary from 1945 to 1952
and at the same time began a research program that would occupy his
energies for the remainder of his life. He traveled to Panama every
year between 1946 and 1966 to make an exhaustive survey of the birds
of the isthmus. This work culminated in the publication of his magnum
opus, The Birds of the Republic of Panama – the last of which was
published posthumously in 1984. Alexander Wetmore died in Maryland
in 1978.